Fun at Grandma and Hapa's

We had so much fun in Quincy!

We celebrated Matt's birthday with his third coconut pie, and lots of family and friends!

Played in the sprinklers

Got our hair cut!

Before

After

 

  

Enjoyed some quality time with Aunt Cynthia

And with Grandma and Hapa!

Now off to St. Louis.....

Our 2012 Visit to Quincy

Before we moved to Brussels, we tried to go to Quincy twice a year.  But now that we're here, we will only travel back to the US once a year and split our time between Quincy and Florida.  And maybe Atlanta, next time.

After our brief stop over in St. Louis, we drove to Quincy.  It had been almost a year since we had seen everyone, so we were really looking forward to our visit.


Carol, Taylor and Megan also came up from St. Louis to stay with us for a few days; the girls stayed the week.  Mark drove up from Arkansas, and the Ley family were with us for a good part of the week, less Brandon, who was playing summer baseball in Hickory, NC.


It was soooooooo hot in Quincy. 106!!!  That's hot under normal circumstances, but coming from chilly Europe, it was a shock to our systems.  The girls were up super early due to the time change, which worked out well, since they could actually play outside in the mornings while it wasn't too warm and the bugs weren't so bad.

Grace loved playing in the sprinkler.

Audrey....not so much.

During the week, in between playdoh ice cream cones and running through the sprinkler, we visited with family and friends, did quite a bit of shopping, celebrated Matt's birthday, and the girls both got their first hair cuts.

Matt's grandfather was a barber, and his cousin Tina has her own salon.  As you walk in, she has a tribute to Grandpa.  His scissors, pipe, and an article in the local paper.

Grace did very well for her very first hair cut.  She sat very still.  Tina is a trained professional.  She knew the trick was to put a DVD on for her to fixate on.

Doesn't she look so grown up?  We love the cut!!

Audrey was not a fan of sitting still or getting her hair cut.  Tina was able to do a little bit of shaping up, though.

We had such a great visit!  The girls really enjoyed spending time with their cousins!  

Thank you to Grandma, Grandpa, Taylor, Megan, Kelsey, Amanda, and everyone else that helped make this such a special trip for all of us!

Here is a link to all of our pictures from Quincy:  Quincy 2012

Kicking off Birthday Month

While we were in Quincy, Grace began Birthday Month celebrations. Megan and Taylor are happy to share the spotlight with Miss Grace, and Grandma is so kind to get each girl their own birthday cake. Grace had dog dogs this year.


Waiting patiently with Megan.


Singing Happy Birthday.



Enjoying her red velvet dog dog cake!

Christmas in Quincy

We spent December 15-20th in Illinois this year, celebrating Christmas with Matt's family. There was a big party (80+ people) Saturday night, and the Caspermeyer kids were in charge of games this year. We played a great party game, if anyone needs any ideas for future holiday parties..... you give each team a pair of panty hose and 8 balloons, and the team who can fill each leg of the hose with 4 blown up balloons each, put the hose on their head and sing Jingle Bells the fastest, wins. It was a riot, and I think everyone enjoyed it. Grandpa George almost won, but was beat in the end by Uncle Steve. By now, you've probably already seen Grace doing her reindeer impersonation after the game and lots of sugar....

We celebrated Christmas with the immediate family on Sunday morning. Grace was very slow and methodical about opening her presents.






But then she enjoyed laying around afterward with her cousins trying out their new toys.



Hanging with cousin Charlie.

What happens.....

.....when you're up an hour and a half past your bedtime, eaten 3 pieces of fudge, two cookies, and several bites of ice cream cake.

Belated 16 Months

This is one week +1 day late because we spent Grace's 16th month day on her 5th airplane ride. Interestingly, all airplane rides are to and from STL to date.

We flew out to St. Louis for Taylor's confirmation. Grace was fashionably late and fairly well behaved in the Basilica.

Grace (& Bubba) could not be bothered to pose for a nice photograph with Taylor and Megan.


But we got this semi-decent shot of her with Uncle Randy.


And a nice one of Taylor and her Godfather.


We had a great visit in both St. Louis and Quincy. Grandma and Grandpa took very good care of Miss Grace, and we saw lots of friends and family!


So a few things about Grace this month..... her two bottom molars have broken through! Her gums have been swollen for what seems like months. We really can't tell when/if her teeth are bothering her. I guess we're lucky!

She is on some kind of 'fruit strike' at school. She eats everything but her fruit. But she's eating fruit fine at home, so not sure what the issue is.

Her two new favorite words are 'open' and 'down'. Open often sounds like apple, but you know she means open when she's yelling about the lid of her straw cup being closed and she wants it opened. Glad she learned to close it. Can't wait till she can open it on her own. And now that she is mobile, she does not want to be held. All we hear is down, down, down. Even when she wants up. I guess we have to work on that!

Birthday Month Kick-Off

Sunday, Grace started her Birthday Month celebrations. Like Mother, like daughter!

Typically we celebrate Megan and Taylor's birthdays the Sunday after the Fischer family Christmas. This year they were gracious enough to share the party with Miss Grace.

Grandma got each birthday girl their own cake!


Grace's cake had goldfish on it, as they ARE her most favorite food on earth.


Yesterday was actually Megan's REAL 11th birthday. 7:27am to be exact. Who could forget?! So she went first.

Then Taylor, who celebrates the big 14 on December 29th.


And then the grand finale.....

Singing Happy Birthday and blowing out Grace's candle

And digging in....

Thanks everyone for helping us kick off Birthday month with a BANG! Grace is one lucky, little girl!

Hambone

Christmas in Quincy

The Georgia Caspermeyer's traveled to Quincy, IL last Thursday to do Quincy Christmas. Grace did great on the flight into St. Louis. Which probably made us overly optimistic about how our return flight to Atlanta would go.....

We ended up having a snowy trip!! But we didn't do much playing in it.



Friday night we did Christmas with the immediate family. We mixed it up this year and started with the youngest.....mainly so Grace could go first and head to bed!! She made out like a bandit, but didn't quite grasp opening presents. She will have lots of practice in the next couple of weeks in that department, though! Thank you to everyone for all of Grace's Christmas presents!






Saturday night was the Fischer Family Christmas. Another late night partying and playing hot potato with the baby. Which I think she personally loved.

And Sunday was the official kick-off of Birthday Month. This will be a separate post...stay tuned.

The big hit of the weekend was "dog dog", aka Blondie, the Dailing Family yellow lab. Grace loved dog dog. And she started holding objects up to her ear like she was talking on the phone. Mainly remote controls. Or her cousins' cell phones.



Our return flight was a complete nightmare. We were THOSE parents with the screaming baby. :( I'm hoping it was less about ears and more about being overtired and worn out from her very exciting weekend in Quincy. It was bedtime when we took off, and we did everything possible to entertain her and keep her from screaming, yelling, crying..... the nice lady in front of us even gave us a candy cane for her to suck on. And it worked for awhile. She also almost ate an entire quart ziplock bag full of goldfish. And worked on a bottle of baby green beans and her sippy cup of water and about half of a bottle. All this in the span of a little over an hour, which felt like eternity. We tired just about everything. The icing on the cake was landing early in Atlanta and then having to sit on the tarmac for another 45 minutes while we waited for a gate to open up. Not a good situation at all. The 48 other passengers of our very small, cozy airplane were not our biggest fans.

All in all, it was a great trip! Grace is having the time of her life. :)

First trip to Quincy

The Georgia Caspermeyer's just got back from their first trip to Quincy, IL as a family of three. Miss Grace did wonderfully on both plane/car trips. The trip home included an emergency diaper change in an airplane lavatory by Daddy (not fun) where Grace's socks met their untimely demise. Again, to spare our readers any graphic details, use your imagination.

We traveled to Quincy to celebrate Matt's parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. The weekend was full of lots of family, food, friends, parties, parades, and more food. Grace met all of her aunts, uncles, cousins, many great aunts and uncles, and lots of good friends on the Caspermeyer side. As Matt says...."she was passed around like a bad cold."

Grandma Judy did a wonderful job making sure Grace had everything her little heart desired. She especially loved the bouncy seat that was borrowed from a friend.

Not sure who was more entertained....Grace or her cousins, but it was a big hit!

Grace was a sweet baby girl all week. She was totally off schedule, didn't sleep particularly well, got a little fussy at inopportune moments, but managed to have lots of smiles and giggles for everyone. We are so lucky! And we had a great time in Quincy. We're looking forward to our June trip to St. Louis!

Here is a slide show of pictures from our week in Quincy: Quincy Pictures